Norwegian overtakes SAS as Scandinavia’s most used airline

Low-cost airlines are particularly popular during the summer months (photo: iStock)

August 7th, 2015 5:43 pm| by Lucie Rychla

With the most passengers on board, Norwegian has emerged as the winner in the summer battle among the Scandinavian airline companies.

Although SAS reported a record high occupancy on its planes in July, even more passengers opted for the low-cost airline.

Hitting new records
On Thursday, Norwegian announced about 2.69 million passengers flew with the company in July, purchasing 93.8 percent of all its seats.

Meanwhile, SAS reached a total occupancy level of 86.9 percent as 2.59 million people used its services in the same period.

SAS beat its previous record set in July 2012 when it recorded a 86.8 percent occupancy.

Norwegian getting bigger
“It is the first time that Norwegian is larger than SAS, but it’s something we’ll have to get used to as Norwegian grows rapidly and buys new aircraft,” Jacob Pedersen, a senior analyst at Sydbank, told Berlingske.

“July is usually a very strong month for low-cost companies because people are going on holidays, so as such this should be neither surprising nor alarming to SAS. But we should probably expect that Norwegian will eventually overtake SAS in the future.”

This year, Norwegian expects to get 11 new planes, including one Boeing Dreamliner for long-distance routes.